Billie Holiday is a little too glissando for me, generally, but Ella… Ella… Ms. Fitzgerald always gets it right for me. Stunning. 5 stars every single day and twice on Sundays. Thank you ma’am. Soulful and warm, or playful and coquettish, Ella nails it. Not to mention a natural gift for rhythm and scat-singing (she basically invented it. That’s reductive perhaps, but it may as well be true)

Stellar classic rock and roll. 12-bar blues. Great melodies, lyrics. Recognized a few songs, even though I’d not heard the name Paul Revere and the Raiders before. Right in my wheelhouse

Raw and emotional. Lyrically repugnant. Don’t love the vocals but subjectively appropriate for the style/message. I don’t like it, but I COULD under the right circumstances. Going middle of the road rating, but can’t fault the whole package.

It’s like the La’s meets the Clash, with a little Neil Young for ‘flavour’. I kinda dig it. It’s the accent throwing me off. Like it’s just country/folk, but I typically imagine those genres as Americana. But this guy is CLEARLY from Essex, and it sounds weirdly dissonant. Whether that’s fair or not, I dunno, “It’s just how I feel”, as Mike Birbiglia might say. But it’s not bad, not at all. Songs are melodic and would sound amazing sung drunkenly in a large crowd pissed on pints.

Hippie drum circle bullshit. I think I could like it under different circumstances, but not today.

Kinda like early lo-fi. Pretty vocal tone from female lead singer, but not really digging the sound. Pretty repetitive.

Heavier than I expected, probably due to heavy bass. Exactly as dour as I expected. More rock than pop. Give another chance when in a worse mood.

Luscious late ‘70s funk/R&B. Borders on disco (shudder), but that bass is oh so nice. Remember the name Bernard Edwards!

Hard to categorize. Old fashioned. It’s like gospel for disaffected atheists and agnostics. Nick Cave has amazing voice. Makes monotone sound interesting. GREAT lyrics. “I dunno what art is, but I know what I like. And I like this.”

Stellar classic rock and roll. 12-bar blues. Great melodies, lyrics. Recognized a few songs, even though I’d not heard the name Paul Revere and the Raiders before. Right in my wheelhouse

Have heard many times. Some great songs, some not so much. Weird story makes me worry about Pete Townsend.

I bet I’d like this more if I had some of what they were smoking… repetitive hippie music. Plus I’m pretty sure track 2 is just the vocalist reading a smut story. Not really my cup of tea, but listenable/ignorable.

My existing opinion of T.Rex was that they were a Rolling Stones clone. I hate The Rolling Stones. Nothing about this album has changed my opinion. It’s capital-F Fine. Easy to ignore, inoffensive, but not terribly original or interesting. The Rolling Clones.

Having heard the name Sonic Youth before, I expected a lot of dissonant jangly noise, and it IS that, but weirdly, I like it? I like it a lot. I think this would fall under the genre “Shoegaze”, but it’s vastly more enjoyable to my ear than Dinosaur Jr. I will probably add this to my regular rota.

Tempting to call it proto-Benatar, but not really fair, as Benatar debuted just a year later. Jefferson Airplane, but 70s. Proto-Florence + the Machine, then. Hard rock, almost punk, but more elaborate phrasing and chording vs. power chords and manic strumming. I didn’t like it yesterday when I had a migraine, but I quite like it today. I’m glad I gave it another shot.

Does anyone have better acoustic tone than Neil Young? Probably, but his is prettay prettay good. Fun folk rock live album. Great songwriting as always from Mr. Young.

Dear god, the shimmery chorus pedal… inject that directly into my eardrums. Cranberries-esque. I love it. Vocal melodies and harmonies are great. I bet the Uninvited guys love this album. There’s a clear influence there. “Elizabeth, my dear” - cheeky “Scarborough Fair” parody. But she’s still queen, you poor bastards! 32 years later! First time I have rolled it back for a second listen. That’s probably a good sign, lol

It is ironic (not the right word… cosmically aesthetic?) that I got Living Color the day after Rage Against the Machine, since RAtM basically took “Cult of Personality” and “Funny Vibe” and ran with it. But here we are decades later, and these songs are still sadly relevant. Bit more funkay than RAtM, bit less serious. I can dig it. Now I’ll stop before I embarrass myself further.

No. Just… no. Annoying techno dreck. Not my cuppa.

Oh man. My favorite. So many great songs. Guess I get a free day today, cause I been listening to this album since I was 12.

Iconic prototype of early to mid 80s new wave sound. Listenable, just not my style. Rating reflects personal opinion, not overall quality. (I guess that’s true all the time, but especially here.)

Raw and emotional. Lyrically repugnant. Don’t love the vocals but subjectively appropriate for the style/message. I don’t like it, but I COULD under the right circumstances. Going middle of the road rating, but can’t fault the whole package.

I would’ve hated this maybe as few as five years ago. Worse, I’d have dismissed it without giving it a chance. I’m different now. Now I give it a chance BECAUSE I wouldn’t have picked it. It’s still not something I’d choose to listen to, but I’m more willing to meet it on its own terms, to try to examine it and understand it and respect it. I’ll give myself the patronizing white guy pat on the shoulder here, even though I can recognize that perhaps I’m still a bit racist, just in a different way. I’m more like the condescending “liberal” white family in “Get Out”. Oh well, keep trying to grow and improve, right? Interesting mix of pop-rock and rap. Some of these songs speak to me like Childish Gambino last summer. Bears further examination.

Leonard Cohen-ish, Perry Como-ish, Roy Rogers-ish, lounge singer-ish. That probably sounds worse than I mean it to. It’s not sleazy or anything, just kinda beige. Bland. Nondescript. Perfectly inoffensive, but challenges the listener not at all. Still, there’s something comforting about it, like eating a cupcake or snuggling a teddy bear or slipping on your favorite pajamas and staying in bed all day. There’s value in that. Also, holy crap! This album is from 2005! I would’ve guessed 1958.

Luscious ‘70s Soul R&B. Maybe not as groundbreaking as “What’s Going On?”, but comforting and sexy. Gaye’s vocals stand out, of course, but also superlative bass work from Jamerson and Felder, plus tasty 70s orchestra, not quite “Wall of Sound” levels, but fat and satisfying.

Sort of a more superficially optimistic The Cure… vocalist sounds incredibly familiar, although I’ve never *consciously* listened to the Bunnymen before. I’ve probably heard a song but didn’t know it was them. Or some other vocalist sounding like him. I like this. It’s easy to listen to, while still being interesting.

What even is this? Is it folk? Pop? Rock? I finally figured it out when I got to track 5, “Chicken Bones”… John Grant is They Might Be Giants. Or close enough. Fan-blanking-tactic lyrics. Fun music. Great vocals. I’ll be spinning this one again.

First impression is soothing lo-fi-ish R&B, very listenable, but I suspect I didn’t give it the attention it deserves yesterday, especially lyrically. Worthy of another listen when I’m not so distracted. Musically though, very nice.

Tremendous. Triumphant. Transcendent. Fourth Tr word. I’ve never listened to this full album as the artist intended it. I have now remedied that frankly unconscionable failing. This is the sort of thing I signed up for with this challenge.

It’s like the La’s meets the Clash, with a little Neil Young for ‘flavour’. I kinda dig it. It’s the accent throwing me off. Like it’s just country/folk, but I typically imagine those genres as Americana. But this guy is CLEARLY from Essex, and it sounds weirdly dissonant. Whether that’s fair or not, I dunno, “It’s just how I feel”, as Mike Birbiglia might say. But it’s not bad, not at all. Songs are melodic and would sound amazing sung drunkenly in a large crowd pissed on pints.

What’s my problem with Lenny Kravitz’s voice? Why won’t I give him the time of day? He’s objectively talented. He write soulful, funky music? So what’s my deal? No idea. But I’m definitely the one with the problem. I must be, right? Lenny is beloved. 2 stars, but don’t count it. Read another review. This one is broken.

Billie Holiday is a little too glissando for me, generally, but Ella… Ella… Ms. Fitzgerald always gets it right for me. Stunning. 5 stars every single day and twice on Sundays. Thank you ma’am. Soulful and warm, or playful and coquettish, Ella nails it. Not to mention a natural gift for rhythm and scat-singing (she basically invented it. That’s reductive perhaps, but it may as well be true)

Hippie drum circle bullshit. I think I could like it under different circumstances, but not today.

Competent at what it does, only what it does is tacky synth-pop-‘jazz’. I’ve never heard the name Donald Fagen before, but I’ve heard many of these songs before, on the intercom at CVS. HARD pass.

Chipper pop rock, definitely of its time. Strings and keyboards vs. guitar rock gives it a real 70s vibe. Even disco-ish, I must admit, although dismissing it out of hand for that is short sighted. There’s definitely a lot more going on here than that statement gives it credit for. Besides, it’s right there in the name: Electric Light *Orchestra*. You can’t accuse them of false advertising. I like this, although a lot of criticisms would be justified, and I wouldn’t have an answer for them… except to say that this album contains “Mr. Blue Sky”, which is a song that never once in my life has failed to put me in a good mood. For that song alone, 5 stars.

There’s a weird Nick Cave/Tom Waits/even Chris Isaak quality to this but I’m not sure I like it. I think I will have to roll it again to figure it out. But I also kinda don’t want to, first impressions being what they are. Dunno. An enigma. Or an off day for me. Note to self: try it again someday.

Dunno what exactly I expected, but this isn’t it. More plain old straight up rock and roll than I expected. Different vocal tone versus the plaintive, apprehensive timbre I associated with Elvis Costello previously. All of this is to say that I like it very much. I have a new appreciation for Costello. Also, I never before realized how much of an influence Costello is on John Flansberg of They Might Be Giants. I feel like an idiot.

Perfectly fine, but it all kinda runs together. Nothing really stands out. I think “License to Ill” is better.

Naturally, very familiar with this one as well already. Between “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver”, my dad educated me about the Beatles in my early teens. As such, both have special places in my heart, though if I had to choose between the two, I’d lean “Rubber Soul”. That is in no way any sort of indictment on “Revolver”. This album is also a stone-cold classic.

Shoegazey. Dour. Noisy. Not really enjoying this.

Vulgar, both musically and lyrically speaking. Normally I’d be kinda into that, but I’m not feeling it today. Middle of the road for potential enjoyment

I don’t like The Rolling Stones… don’t like Jagger, songs are too simplistic, vastly overrated. Beatles > Stones, always. That said, there’s some nice album tracks here. I might have to consider that it’s just their hits I’m not a fan of. “No Expectations” and “Dear Doctor” are perfectly fine songs. Hmm… Deserves further examination.

I think it’s funny that there’s typically little to no overlap between fans of rap and fans of heavy metal. Both feature mostly spoken/shouted vocals, sick beats, and percussive instrumentation from non-percussion instruments. In Pantera’s case, the crunchy guitar acts like a second drum kit driving the rhythm. Lead singer is not really singing, exactly… but it’s not necessary that he do so in order to get the point across. I’m sorta meh about this. It’s kinda boring, IMO… even though I should be energized by the RAWKK!!!!1!! I guess because I’ve heard it all a hundred times, done in more interesting ways. But I should give credit where it’s due; some of my favorite bands wouldn’t exist without the influence of early metal bands like Pantera. I was barely sentient in ‘92, but there can’t have been many bands like this before then. Credit for defining the genre, but I don’t love it.

I try to give music the benefit of the doubt, and remember it’s a product of its time. But I was alive in 2001 when this album came out, and some of this stuff was pretty objectionable even back then. In fact, that might have been the point… to challenge societal mores. That’s great and all, but “Girls Girls Girls” is pretty fucking racist and misogynist. Maybe this is my privilege speaking, but there’s a lot here that I find repellent, but probably was pretty common back then. (Maybe it even still is, I don’t listen to a lot of rap.) I guess I was right, though. I still have preconceptions, and I never liked this style of rap, and I’m not likely to start now. Anything I say after that is likely to come off as racist/classist, and I don’t want to give people the wrong idea, so I’ll stop there. That ship might have already sailed. Alas.

Like Nick Drake, if Rivers Cuomo sang vocals. Hippie bullshit, but I kinda like it. It’s lush and full and melodic and dreamy. Worth another listen or three, even if the songs are pretty repetitive.

Ugh. Somebody get this guy some Zoloft or something… sad sack singer writing sad sack songs. And while I appreciate the spirit behind “America is Not the World” (a song sadly MORE relevant now than in 2004), it doesn’t mean I like listening to it. Pretentious and overwrought. Pass.

New wavey and very British. It’s okay.

Another chick punk band. Can’t argue with the aesthetic, love the retro touches/Danelectros. But this vocalist is grating my last nerve. She’s too glissando. Clean it up a bit and call me back. And in doing so, rob Sleater-Kinney of everything that makes them unique. Maybe don’t do that just to impress one “fan”. Keep rocking, ladies, you’re doing just fine. I’ll be over by the bar, sulking.

I often talk about the Beatles like they’re two different bands: the early stuff like “Hard Day’s Night” and “Help”, where they sing about love between two people; and the shift right around “Rubber Soul/Revolver” where they start singing about Love, between ALL people. And the early stuff is fine, but the later stuff is truly iconic and world changing. What I’m getting at here is, this album is Buddy Holly’s “early stuff”, where he’s singing about a boy and a girl, and what boys and girls do. And it’s great, it really is. In fact, it inspired the early Beatles IMMENSELY. But, man! If only Buddy Holly had lived long enough to get to his “world-changing” period… maybe there wouldn’t even BE a Beatles, at least, not like we think of them today. Buddy had a head start, after all. Tragic loss. Oh well, there’s some great fun songs on here. “Oh Boy” and “That’ll Be the Day”, in particular.